Went to Hobby Lobby, which is becoming more of a Pier One every time I visit. I like the merchandise, but the thing is that we already have a Pier One, whereas Hobby Lobby is our only art/craft supply store. So it would be nice to see the arts and crafts regain some floor space. I couldn't even find candlewicking pillow kits or anything interesting like that; it was all counted cross stitch. Of course, I can go online and find more selection at a better price, but on my end I was looking for some immediate gratification projects and on their end one does like to try to support local business.
Even when said local business has smarmy signs everywhere saying the stores are now closed on Sundays so employees have the opportunity for 'worship and family-time.' So, how many hours or employees lost in that decision? If you're having to work the front lines at Hobby Lobby with their out-of-date cash registers, I think you'd rather have the wages/job and worship/family-gather on your natural days off, whenever they may be. Plus I bet this mandatory Sunday-off means fewer people get two days off in a row. Meanwhile, you'd think in a city like Victoria when everyone hits Wal-Mart and Lowe's on Sunday for fun (and family time, and in their own way perhaps worship) that it would be in Hobby Lobby's best interests to be open.
So, either they're willing to cut off everyone's nose in order to enforce family-time/worship on Sundays, or Sundays-off is an economic decision disguised as gag-me piety. Either way, I don't like it. Remind me to be more patient and shop online next time.
But anyway, I scored a great coup in terms of getting my girl scout arts and crafts fix. Two soap-making kits, one loofah and one loaf, and a bath fizzy kit. Wow, what a difference from this time last year when Mike and I wanted to make our own Primal Elements soaps and Hobby Lobby only carried the basics. Loaf soap has officially hit the mainstream.
Naturally next time I will do the financially wise thing and buy better oils, bases, and molds online, but the kits are good value and fun. Now that I have a microwave the soap-melting is infinitely easier. I know that doesn't jibe with the colonial imagery of working with dye and lye, but I'm into it for the funky design making.
I hauled everything over to Mom and Dad's. Mom told me about her wonderful massage therapy experience while I opened the boxes and read the instructions. The bath fizzies sounded a bit difficult, but we'll see. Amazing what you can do with corn starch, baking soda, citric acid, fragrance/colour, and plastic molds. ('colours' yes, 'moulds' no.) It will be neat if I can make a decent stab at it.
Mom and I decided to make the loofah soap. Already I'm having visions of how great it will be when I'm growing my own loofahs. The kit came with pink and green loofahs, which did not go well together but were fine when separated by five feet. I choose pink for Mom's soap, and she choose the pearberry scent from one of the other kits rather than the green tea or chamomile included. The whole process was dead easy. Break off and melt cubes, drop in some dye, drop in some fragrance, stir, pour into mold, add loofah, break and melt more cubes, try a different colour dye, pour it into mold, let sit one hour, get impatient and put it in fridge, take it out, use knife around edges in continued impatience, pop out loaf, cut into five 1-inch soaps.
The result was a very attractive blue and green half moon wedge with a pink loofah sticking out that looking like the cross-section of an exotic fruit or cucumber. I made something pretty!
We were very impressed and discussed some of the ideas I'd read while thumbing through a soapmaking 101 booklet at Hobby Lobby. Like oatmeal, cinnamon, honey, cookie cutters for embedded designs, letting the coloured soap dry so it makes different layers. Photos later.
Then I came home, dog tired, but was inspired to look online where I found tube molds, exciting aloe vera and goat milk soap bases, and scents like 'cinnamon bun' that don't seem to be on a level with what comes out of a nozzle for 75 cents at the car wash.
I'm a little nervous because this seems to be a hobby where you could lay out a lot of money and, while soap is nice and fun to make, you only can give away so much. Perhaps eBay to the rescue?
Hobby Lobby has watercolour paper 50% off until the 16th, but I had to convince the cashier this was true. That being an excellent deal, next time I will have to take a photo of the sign on the aisle and show the cashier through the LCD since it doesn't seem to be on their flyer. Sylvia put me in the mood to paint flowers. I'm really bad at it, but at least now anything I make won't quickly wrinkle up for being on the wrong paper.
Now to enjoy the last 30 minutes before my day begins.
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